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January 31, 2014

Technology limits us more than ice

An ice storm visited us here on the Crystal Coast the last week in January 2014. Our normally open waters have temporarily frozen and we got enough sleet to keep us home for a few days.

The nice thing about the ice is that mother nature and the warm sunshine will make it disappear pretty quickly as you can see from the picture. Most of us had enough sense to stay home which is more than I can say for some other folks in the South.

We all have a bigger problem and it is not as easy to fix. It is technology. We have grown dependent on it, and maybe some of our high tech devices are getting beyond what is good for us. I have been worried about this a long time. I wrote this article about our wonderful Volvo being destroyed by a clueless dealer back in 2005.

I have seen advancements in technology tools, but some like supposed improvements in Apple's iPhoto software have caused me to jump ship or pull the plug on products. Our Harmony remote which was a bear to set up in 2006 recently died. We went back to the standard remote which Time-Warner provided. About two months later, the "guide function" on it stopped working. I am not looking forward to getting a new one of those working much less thinking about the possibility of a new Harmony remote and trying to make it work with our "old" 2006 gear.

Some of this seems to be intentional and comes from the tech companies. It gets harder and harder to use the old stuff so you have to throw it all away and get new things. Apple has been accused of doing this with iOS and their iPhones. I do not have one so it is hard for me to verify.

I am much more comfortable with orderly transitions. I have had a series of Sony video recorders. Whenever I bought a new one after several years, it would come with adapters that let me move movies from the old one. What a nice a concept for a tech company to push.

I am going to be thinking about this subject a lot more. I can remember changing the spark plugs in my vehicles. I can even remember checking and setting the points. I do not want to go back to old stuff that has been replaced by better gear, but if sure would be nice it serviceability, upgradeability, and usability got a lot more attention.